


say that you remember (feeling the same about me)

by thehibiscusthief



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Bittersweet, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Kuroo-centric, background kenhina - Freeform, conversations over coffee, growing up and letting go is hard, hopeful ending!!! its gonna be ok!!!!!, past kuroken, postcanon except i havent read the manga since nationals and i do what i want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:07:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26826373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehibiscusthief/pseuds/thehibiscusthief
Summary: Sometimes people fall apart and come back together.Sometimes they just fall apart.A conversation between two friends, fifteen years later.
Relationships: Kozume Kenma & Kuroo Tetsurou
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	say that you remember (feeling the same about me)

**Author's Note:**

> title from "midas" by skott

“You cut your hair,” Kuroo says blankly.

Kenma—looks good. His hair is neater now, falling sharply angled just below his jaw. Jet black. It’s purposeful. He’s grown into himself, still small, still lean, but not curled in and away from the world anymore. The sunlight drifts around his shoulders, framing him in the rickety chair across from Kuroo.

Kenma takes a sip of his tea. “You brush yours now.”

Kuroo’s hand jerks, an aborted instinctual reach to fix his hair. “I brushed it then,” he protests weakly.

“Don’t bullshit me, Kuro, you know I’m immune,” Kenma says. _Kuro_. It’s been years since he’s heard that and hearing it again brings it all back, every moment, every touch, every look, every _no not yet it’s not the right time I’ll wait I’ll wait for the right time to ask him and then_ —

Kuroo clears his throat and swirls his coffee in his mug. “All right, all right. My personal care habits were questionable in high school. But what are you up to these days?”

There’s an eye roll from Kenma, and okay, fine, _questionable_ is stretching it. But at least he moves on and answers the question.

“Oh, this and that.”

Kuroo waits.

No clarification is forthcoming.

“Ah, Kenma. You haven’t changed a bit,” he says. Laughs. It feels awkward. It _is_ awkward.

“Mm.” Kenma lifts his cup to his lips, takes a slow sip.

Wait.

Is that—

That’s a _smirk_. Kuroo jerks up straight in his chair, awkwardness dropping away in an instant.

“You’re fucking with me,” he accuses. “The first time I see you in fifteen years and you’re fucking with me. _Kenma!”_

“Fine. I’m an elite hacker working for an international spy gang,” Kenma says.

“Bullshit.”

“Video game developer.”

“You don’t do deadlines.”

“Amusement park attendant.”

“You don’t do people.”

“Stock market analyst.”

“You don’t do capitalism.” The banter flows easy, the years shrinking, old habits coming back quick. The lively chatter of the coffeeshop around them picks up.

“Trophy husband.”

“You don’t do relationships.” After all, that’s why—that’s _part_ of why—

Kenma’s smirk grows. He lifts his left hand.

Kuroo’s gut drops.

There, on his third finger, sits a sleek golden band, shining in the late afternoon sun.

“Ah,” he says, “Congratulations,” he says, and then, because Kuroo is not Kuroo unless his foot is solidly in his mouth, “I guess you _have_ changed.”

Kenma blinks. “How so?”

“Uh—nothing, sorry. Um. Who’s the lucky guy, haha?” _Haha_. A verbal ha space ha. Wow. Kill him. Just kill him. He wants to _die_ , the awkwardness is choking him, this meeting was a _mistake_ —

“Shouyou.”

“Shrimpy? No way. How have I not heard anything about this?” Kuroo splutters. Hinata is a professional volleyball player. Kuroo follows volleyball religiously. Surely he would have heard—it’s not like Hinata was ever _quiet_ about his personal life—hell, he goes out for drinks with Kei every other week and _he_ never said anything—

How can you be a trophy husband if your husband doesn’t show you off?

“I don’t like attention,” Kenma says with a shrug. “You know I never have.”

“Huh. Yeah.”

Kuroo pulls a mini cup of creamer out of the dish in the center of the table. He peels it open and dumps it into his coffee. He picks up the spoon to stir it in. Pauses.

Well. Okay. Topic change. Should do that. Definitely should do that. So…

“I had the biggest crush on you in high school,” Kuroo blurts.

_Why does he ever say things ever that was not what he meant to say that was not even a topic change shit fuck hell—_

“I know,” Kenma says. “You weren’t exactly subtle.”

Kuroo maybe chokes on his coffee a little bit. “You _knew_? And you never—”

Kenma’s fingers wrap around his cup. “I think,” he says, very carefully, very deliberately, each word picked and chosen and placed just so, “that at the time, we were both too scared of too many things to take any sort of step forward. And that was, I think, in the end, for the best.”

Kuroo stares down at his coffee, a white pool of cream floating over the dark surface. “For the best,” he repeats. Quietly.

“For the best,” Kenma confirms.

Kuroo bites the inside of his cheek.

The quiet between them stretches into a silence hovering on the edge of awkwardness. The jumble of coffee shop noise in the background is uneasy, a humming shaking jitter of sound.

Kenma shifts. The light dances on his ring.

Once, a long time ago, fifteen years ago, Kuroo had been twenty-two years old and so damn lonely and missing everything about a simpler time, everything about a simpler world, where he saw his best friend and crush every day and he went to the third gym for volleyball practice every day and he stopped at the corner store on the way back every day and he didn’t need to scramble over deadlines and bills and rent and grocery shopping and job applications and budgets and he could just _be_.

And once, a long time ago, fifteen years ago, twenty-two year old Kuroo thought of all of these things and linked them all back to one Kozume Kenma and one night in the depths of a particularly nostalgic pity party his mostly-faded high school crush had _flared_ up and stayed steadily burning until—

Kuroo Tetsurou, suddenly feeling all thirty-seven of his years weighing on his shoulders, lets out a sigh. “Teenagers, huh.”

Kenma nods.

“Shrimpy taking care of you?” Kuroo asks, because faded crush or no, this was once his _best friend_ and he deserves _everything_ and if Hinata doesn’t know how to give him that—

“Trophy husband, remember?” Kenma says, fondness in his voice. “We’re doing great. Thank you for asking.”

“Good,” Kuroo says. He picks up his spoon and begins to stir the creamer in. “Good.”

“It is.” Kenma looks Kuroo in the eyes, and with a warm smile says, “It is good.”

And the odd thing is, it really is.

**Author's Note:**

> please help me i dont know how to purchase a nutritionally sound variety of produce and eat it all before it goes bad i have wasted so much money on moldy strawberries
> 
> [tumblr](http://thehibiscusthief.tumblr.com)


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